Support For Cuba Embargo Continues To Decline

Joshua Keating comments on the changes in public opinion on the Cuba embargo, noting that supporters of the embargo remain the most interested in keeping the policy in place:

A majority of Americans, and even a majority of Cuban-Americans in Florida (who also supported Barack Obama over Mitt Romney in the last election), may now oppose the embargo, but older voters with visceral personal experience of Castro’s Cuba feel more strongly about it. The number of people whose votes and donations are determined by their support for the embargo may be dwindling, but it’s probably still greater than the number whose vote and donations are determined by opposition to it.

The good news is that support for the utterly useless embargo of Cuba has been getting steadily weaker over time, and there is good reason to assume that it will continue to wane until the embargo is finally lifted. Even though this will happen many decades later than it should have, it is encouraging to know that there is some limit to how long such senseless policies can endure. The embargo is a good example of the kind of needlessly harmful policies the U.S. can pursue when it allows its dealings with another country to be shaped almost entirely by ideological and emotional factors. It is also a monument to our government’s remarkable inability to abandon some failed policies decades after their futility has become obvious.

The finding that most Floridians (63%) want to end the embargo makes perfect sense, since Florida would be one of the biggest beneficiaries–along with Cuba–of a return to normal trade relations. The only people that are being punished by the embargo are those Cubans and Americans that could otherwise be doing business with one another if the embargo didn’t exist. Embargoing Cuba has done nothing for the U.S. except to give our neighbors in the hemisphere another complaint against us, and it has arguably helped the Castros hold on to power more fully and longer than they might have otherwise done.

P.S. Looking more closely at the Atlantic Council’s poll, opponents of the embargo may have an advantage in intensity after all. Among Floridians, 8% strongly support normalizing relations with Cuba, but only 17% strongly oppose this. Nationwide, 30% are strongly in favor of normalization, and just 22% are opposed. Supporters of the embargo may have the advantages of defending the status quo and better organization, but it appears that they don’t have as many strong supporters as we might think.

The biggest threat Cuba poses is to the winter vacation and retirement industry in southern Florida. It is a viable low-cost alternative with an exotic air. I suspect that this is where the opposition is now centered.

Well, at the apparently unavoidable cost … could someone please explain to me—*specifically*—how this embargo hurts the U.S. to any marked degree greater than it does us good and credit for demonstrating our lack of admiration and willingness to put up with a totalitarian, deeply hostile regime?

The trouble with such polls is they do not truly report, nor can they truly report, the depth of the issue. I would warrant that for the most part the anti-embargo people are very shallowly anti-embargo. That is, it has a low importance when it comes to supporting a candidate. However, the pro-embargo people will probably rate the issue quite important, and may to a certain degree be single-issue voters.

” could someone please explain to me—*specifically*—how this embargo hurts the U.S. to any marked degree greater than it does us good”

At the very least, it costs the U.S. economy several billion dollars in lost trade, it negatively affects our relations with virtually every other Latin American country, and it imposes restrictions on where American citizens can go that serve no purpose. That *might* be justifiable if there were any sign that the embargo was having the slightest effect on undermining the regime, but it has been in place for generations with no noticeable effect.

Obviously, we “put up” with the regime and have done so for almost sixty years, so the idea that we are unwilling to “put up” with them is mistaken. The relevant question is whether it makes sense to refuse to trade with a country because of its repressive government when we do a great deal of business with countries ruled by regimes that are at least as repressive and abusive elsewhere in the world.

Support is waning because Cuba is instituting minor capitalist reforms––specifically in tourism and restaurants. If Cuba instituted major capitalist reforms, which isn’t likely soon, the embargo would be gone tomorrow. It’s just a form of symbolic punishment––as for Cuba being a “totalitarian, hostile regime,” did Cuba ever send a small army to American shores and try and overthrow the government? Or try and assassinate one of our presidents? Oh, no, that was the U.S. attacking Cuba––totalitarianism is a meaningless buzz-word, but the hostility is all from the United States side.

As an old 60 Minutes report had old Miami Mafiosa admitting they broke the rules on the embargo by sending money back to their relatives, the whole thing is a pandering racket designed to help GOP candidates in Florida.

I’m in favor of lifting it if the Cubans start acting in good faith. H-B Act specifies conditions for lifting the embargo. The Cuban government can undertake these at any time. They could start by releasing political prisoners and stop harassing dissidents.

Best estimate is that we lose about $1.2 billion in trade a year because of the embargo. Our current trade with Cuba runs about $400 million a year.

NO Latin American country will jeopardize or has ever jeopardized its standing with the USG over the embargo.

In 1996 it looked like Congress was ready for big changes to the embargo, but then Castro shot down the Brothers to the Rescue plane.

Most congressmen don’t want to be seen as giving the Castros a free gift. I don’t blame them.

USG’s policy toward Cuba is to maintain the status quo and prevent boat people from coming–not regime change in Cuba.

Okay, so responding to my question of how our embargo imposes more costs on us than benefits Mr. Larison has identified three such alleged costs.

The first is the lost opportunity cost in terms of the missing trade some of our businesses would have with Cuba, the second is the infringement on our liberty to visit the place and the third is the enmity it allegedly earns us “with virtually every other Latin American country.”

It seems to me that intellectual honesty requires one to instantly admit the validity of the first two. On the other hand it also seems to me intellectual honesty requires one to admit that those cost are relatively slight. The citizens of Cuba are hardly flush and thus their buying power is perhaps just above the de minimus level, and it hardly need be said that Cuba is not up there as a luxe vacation destination. (Admitting that once we lift the embargo those things would improve and would have if we had never imposed it in the first place.)

It also strikes me as rather funny here not to note the massive hilarity that’s never mentioned hearing the Cuban government bitching about the embargo. After all as good Marxist-Leninists the only thing that letting trade with us do is allow the alleged plundering of their people, and yet … ta da … there’s Castro and his Sucks like Saul Landau somehow getting American intellectuals to overlook this massive oddity.

And the same goes for yet another little oddity: Ever notice how, on the one hand when its suits them Castro and once again his Western Sucks will talk about what a freaking paradise Cuba is with all its wonderful egalitarianism and its health care system, and yet in the next breath, oh gee, look at the cruel penury the U.S. is keeping those poor people in…

But anyway and again, there clearly are those two costs to us as Mr. Larison posits.

As to his third alleged cost though concerning whatever enmity our embargo earns us it seems to me there’s plenty of potential slips betwixt the cup and that lip, including in my opinion the reality that where such enmity exists its not a cost to us at all but a huge benefit.

In the first place how does Dan know that even many much less all of Latin American takes umbrage at our embargo? Have they said that? Where?

In the second, how do we know that they really mean it as opposed to just feeling that they have to pay some lip service to some occasional anti-Yanqui rhetoric? After all, mere rhetoric against us isn’t much of a cost, and note that Larison has neglected to tell us even a scintilla of what any of that real cost may be.

Moreover, it’s a damned funny thing, isn’t it? For all this alleged enmity, not only is it the case with so many of the citizens of “virtually all of Latin America” but the citizens of Cuba *itself*—who presumably would be the most enraged at us—that gee, when they get the chance they still point their little toes and boat and inner tubes not towards, say, Mr. Chavez’s Venezuela, but Northward here, don’t they? Damned funny sort of enmity that.

So what of the enmity that’s left? Well of course there’s no doubt that there’s some, but in whose bosom exactly? And well of equal course it would be those who most strongly object to the U.S. seeking to put the screws to those who, like the Cuban government, would seek to establish a totalitarian regime over its people and not only hold deeply malignant views towards the U.S. but, again as Cuba has done, actually tried in every way possible to harm us.

People aren’t stupid; they see that we are not embargoing every country with merely authoritarian Left-wing regimes, nor did we even do so with Mr. Chavez. And thus what does the embargo say but that its only where you do have a savage totalitarianism, combined with a regime that, for instance, was happy to host nuclear missiles aimed at the U.S. (and disappointed that they were not used as history now reveals) and then recently was just delirious with its ability to dump its worst criminal and mentally ill elements upon us that we have established this embargo.

So what exactly is Mr. Larison saying here? That people are too stupid to recognize this blazing truth? Or that we ought to follow the profoundly anti-intellectual idea that we can’t draw distinctions ourselves? Not even between every other country and those that are profoundly hostile to us *and* have actively tried to harm us? With nuclear weapons even?

Or is it his principle that merely because one of our policies or actions incites some enmity towards us that this is the metric upon which we must judge its wisdom? So that, for instance, the fact that North Korea doesn’t like our policy towards it means it’s bad for us too?

Of *course* this is nonsense: Whether our policies or actions incite some anger towards us says *nothing* alone about the wisdom of those policies or actions in terms of what our best interests are. *Nothing.* It all just simply depends.

And in this case the more enmity it incites in the bosom of Mr. Castro and others who would like to emulate him that better I say. The more *benefit* it is to us. It makes the moral point of standing against such despotry. And it makes the political point that you are not going to tread on us, you are not going to allow our most lethal enemies bases to threaten us and etc. without you paying some consequences, period. And too bad so sad if we’re the bigger and you are the smaller: You have the right to pursue your interests and the citizens of the U.S. have the right to pursue theirs.

The fact is that this anti-embargo sentiment is nothing more than just sentiment, *almost* entirely emptied now of any consideration of substantive merit. (With there being admitted merit to the idea that perhaps dropping the embargo will *hasten* the hanging of Castro.) It’s just simply the product of disappointed ultra-Leftists such as Saul Landau creating over the decades the au courant attitude in certain elements of our society such as in our academia and intelligentsia and media that to be in favor of the embargo is just so hoi polloi infra dig. And, as with so many other things, the herd of independent minds constituting such elements has followed such grotesque apologists for Castro.

But even though so much of it is unthinking now, that doesn’t remove the deep smell of despicableness that some of that sentiment seems to always bring up which is the deep enmity of those Castro Sucks against the Cubans who escaped here. Once again, it’s taken decades of calumny against them, but once again just like with the Stalinist and other ultra-Lefty Sucks one notices their greatest hatred for such refugees. Just like one saw attempted at first for the East Germans trying to get over the Wall. And then the boat people trying to escape the tender mercies of Ho Chi Minh.

Of *course* they hate them the most: They are the very ones showing how the real people feel under the regimes they don’t dare to openly trumpet. No matter if they came on some inner tube across the sharks. They must be slimed, and it’s despicable.

The people of Cuba aren’t stupid (which seems to be the operant belief of so many anti-embargo elites). They know that we aren’t trying to hurt them (and why would we?), but instead don’t want Castro to use trade with us to merely bolster himself. And who in the world would deny that the old gargoyle would do so without the slightest qualm in the world?

Like I say, I recognize and honor that there can be differences of opinion on this embargo issue between people of good will and good faith such as between myself and Mr. Larison. And while I don’t believe it (not least because Castro likes it and secondly because there’s no call for any *crafting* of any opened trade with him so as to not benefit him), I think there is a very interesting argument that opening trade and visitation with Cuba to in some big but careful ways might hasten the day when we see Castro and his brother hanging from Havana lampposts.

But lets at least talk substance here instead of succumbing to the phony, deeply dishonest Willi Munzenberg-like P.R. campaigns of totalitarian Sucks like Saul Landau who disguise their real beliefs and agendas behind such campaigns for the perfectly good reason that their real beliefs and agendas are as malignant as can be towards this country and its principles. In other words, let’s start recognizing the Castros and Walter Durantys for what they truly are and what they want and try to do.

America’s policy towards Cuba is held hostage by the remnants of the first wave of Cuba exiles, the three congressional seats where they have disproportionate influence, and the fact that Florida is usually strongly contested in statewide and presidential elections. When the older Cubans die along with the Castro brothers, American-Cuban relations will thaw and become more normal. By 2040, look for Cuba to have a thriving tourist business along with thousands of retirees. Look for affluent Cuban-Americans in Miami building opulent bungalows along the Cuban seashore.

“supporters of the embargo remain the most interested in keeping the policy in place.”

Not to be disparaging, Daniel, but it seems self evident that supporters of any policy would be the ones most interested in seeing the policy kept in place, and it doesn’t seem to me that is what the excerpt is saying at all.

What it seems to say is that more single issue voters are single issue voters favoring the embargo than they are single issue voters opposing it. My question would be how many voters base their vote on that issue one way or another? If it is a small number, then it makes a poor campaign issue regardless or whether pros outnumber cons or vice versa.

If it is a large number, then Florida is in a sad state, because there are surely far more important issues facing that state than whether or not the US tardes with Cuba, and basing one’s vote on an issue that trivial while ignoring far more serious issues is hardly beneficial to the future of state and nation.

When the Castro brothers die we’ll probably have a good window to lift it. The Congress will have some political cover to “start fresh” with a new, maybe reformist government. In the meantime, why should we give in to them?

Cuba’s problem is not so much the embargo, but its lack of having anything good to SELL.

Reinhold is right of course: the hostility is almost entirely on the US side. It isn’t Cuba that tried to invade and overthrow the US, nor is it Cuba that sponsored death squads in other Countries of the region.

TomB, I’m pretty supportive of the Castro regime (though with qualifications) and I’d say that there’s no inconsistency between saying ‘health/education /literacy rates are high in Cuba’ and ‘the embargo hurts Cuba’. Cuba has a high standard of living relative to other Latin American countries, but it would be even higher without the embargo.

Also, Castro is quite popular in Cuba, by all indications. you need to start talking to people outside the crybaby-whiners who constitute the leaders of the Cuban exile community.

If I were Obama, Id normalize relations with Cuba. Obama is desperate for positive tick marks for his legacy and this would be easy pickins.

Ending the embargo would pretty much mean a US takeover of the Island. Cuban americans have amassed a large fortune of political power here in the US and money. They could easily rebuild Cuba as a resort and retirement destination, become strong employers and major players in politics. It would be like a tidal wave to the castro machine.

The stupidity is why florida Cubans cant see it and neither can US politicians.

“Castro is quite popular in Cuba, by all indications.”
Not only that, he is quite popular in all of Latin America. Because he stood up to the United States. Because they don’t like the United States. Because for about half a century we killed them and overthrew their governments. But I guess, as TomB suggests, “Whether our policies or actions incite some anger towards us says *nothing* alone about the wisdom of those policies or actions in terms of what our best interests are.” So our best interests––and it’s debatable that any of our Latin American policy was in OUR best interest (meaning you and me and Americans as opposed to the state and business elites)––trump concerns like life and democracy in other countries. Indefensible, but of course, defending the indefensible is a condition of blind obedience.

“It isn’t Cuba that tried to invade and overthrow the US, nor is it Cuba that sponsored death squads in other Countries of the region.”

No, it’s just Cuba that expropriated all American-owned property on the island without compensation, hosted nuclear missiles pointed at us and was mad they weren’t used, dumped the Mariel boat-life on us, and sent its death-squads to Africa.

“Cuba has a high standard of living relative to other Latin American countries, but it would be even higher without the embargo.”

I’ll take your word for it and thus concede your good point. I don’t think it’s comprehensive though, and thus will respond further in my response to Reinhold below.

“Also, Castro is quite popular in Cuba.”

Well just as in the Soviet Union and Mao’s China (and today apparently), I have no doubt there’s a large, parasitic class of Nomenklatura elites who are delighted there’s no democracy there. But to the extent you’re correct otherwise, then in my opinion more’s the better in keeping the embargo in place and in fact cranking it harder. They think it’s hunky-dory to dump their criminals and mentally-ill on us then screw ‘em.

Reinhold wrote:

“Not only [is Castro quite popular in Cuba but] he is popular in all of Latin America.”

Ah yes, explains all those immigrant hoards and shark-infested-water boat people just clamoring at his borders for the chance to live under his benevolent and opportunity-abundant rule.

“So our best interests … trump concerns like life and democracy in other countries.”

The tell-tale double-standard trick of the Left: Condemn to hell the West and the U.S. in particular for failing to achieve pure-as-the-driven-snow virginity via following our own interests, while carefully never mentioning their clear belief that it’s okay for everyone *else* to follow theirs.

And, by the way and as a reminder here, we’re talking about *Cuba* here, remember. So what’s your concern for “democracy” got to do with it? Indeed, how come your concern for same so conspicuously *ends* at the Cuban border?

Or, to put it another way, what’s with this *additional* double standard as well?

“explains all those immigrant hoards….”
It really doesn’t matter, he just IS popular there. It’s not something we made up.
“So what’s your concern for “democracy” got to do with it? Indeed, how come your concern for same so conspicuously *ends* at the Cuban border?”
Why do you assume I care more about Castro not having democracy than the U.S. not having it?

“Condemn to hell the West and the U.S. in particular for failing to achieve pure-as-the-driven-snow virginity via following our own interests”
Again, as I said above, it is already very doubtful that what is in our government’s and our businesses’ interests is in my interest or even yours. So if the U.S. was just pursuing the interests of most Americans, maybe I’d feel differently.

Let’s look at the claims put forth by the article. The Cuban embargo is foolish because it is
1)Bad for Americans farmers/businesses
2)Bad for our reputation
3)Helps the Castros stay in power and by implication has failed to starve the Castros out.

Point #1 is no doubt true but can we quantify how much is lost? How significant would a new Cuban market be for American businesses? And let’s remember that Castro and Co. would be getting their cut too from the increased revenue.

Point #2 needs quantification to mean something. Having studied Latin America’s roller coaster relationship with the Yanqui’s I would venture to say that the Embargo is not bubbling to the top of anybody’s list of complaints. I’m willing to change that perspective provided somebody can link me to some hard evidence that states otherwise.

Point #3 without further evidence doesn’t hold up when placed in context. The Embargo failed to starve out the Castros because the USSR propped up the Cuban economy. The loss of Soviet support was a major loss that was only partially fixed by Hugo Chavez. In fact, the Cubans have been forced to embark on certain market reforms to attempt to revive their economy. That seems to me that the embargo is having at least some kind of desired effect from the US perspective.

There are also reasons that we could consider as a rationale for keeping the Embargo. Although I think the power of reputation is overstated at times, in this case, I think we ought to consider that lifting the embargo without meeting the conditions set forth by US law would hurt our reputation. The Cuban govt stands for basic principles (command economy, suppression of human rights, etc.) that are the direct opposite of American ones. In effect we would be giving in to the Castro’s (and that’s exactly how they would see it) who, let us not forget, encouraged the use of nuclear weapons against the US in 1962, expropriated American businesses without compensation, and released criminals to our shores in the Mariel boatlift.

In sum we stand to lose relatively little by keeping the Cuban Embargo, while lifting it without meeting the conditions we have set would be a betrayal of our values not to mention a direct capitulation to a state that has actively aligned itself with our opponents. My personal hope is that when Raul and Co. leave the scene over the next decade that we will see an opportunity to engage with the Cubans.

Fifty years ago. And, of course, that was after we had funded, sponsored, organized and backed an invasion of Cuba. And, in addition, we had missiles in our country pointed at Cuba, and at Russia and China, and probably still do. Indeed, our allies near the USSR had missiles pointed at the USSR from more or less the same distance as Cuba is from the USA. And, beyond that, the USA had no right under international law to object to Cuba allowing its ally to use its soil to base missiles. And the “quarantine” of Cuba enforced by the US Navy was another blatant violation of international law, and actually an act of war, not to mention violating the freedom of the seas, which made two hundred years of US policy into instant hypocrisy. Furthermore, the double standard insisted on in public by the USA (perfectly OK for the US to station “defensive” ((LOL!)) missiles in Turkey, but some sort of crime against peace, humanity, etc, etc for the USSR to station missiles in Cuba) was preposterous. And even the US knew it. Khrushchev proved to be the bigger and better man, and greater humanitarian, than JFK, and took the fall for the Soviet loss of face, while, in secret, the USA recognized the injustice of its unilateral demands, and agreed to remove the missiles from Turkey as part of the deal (as well as pledging to refrain from an outright invasion of Cuba).

OK, Castro was not as generous as Khrushchev, but then again, it was his country that had been invaded, it was his life that was at risk from US assassins and it was his regime that was being targeted by the CIA and its various hired thugs and terrorists. And, even at that, I have seen nothing to suggest that Castro ever demonstrated any “anger” that the missiles weren’t used. Rather, he was angry that the Soviets backed down and agreed to their removal.

Moreover, the whole issue was completely muted within a few years by the development of nuclear missile submarines, which could be and were stationed right off the US coast, and could hit more cities more quickly than any missiles ever stationed in Cuba. And, beyond that, why was it OK for the US to shove nuclear missile stationing down various dubious European publics(particularly in West Germany and the UK) as late as the 1980′s, but not OK for Cuba to host missiles?

Of all the “reasons” for continuing the embargo, this is the most preposterous. Cuba and the USSR were in the right to begin with. But, collectively, they backed down anyway (in public, at least), to a USA that had threatened to start WWIII over an issue in which international law, not to mention basic fairness, put it totally in the wrong. And all of this more than half a century ago!

“…I think we ought to consider that lifting the embargo without meeting the conditions set forth by US law would hurt our reputation. The Cuban govt stands for basic principles (command economy, suppression of human rights, etc.) that are the direct opposite of American ones.”

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stands for absolute monarchy and suppression of human rights, and so on, and yet the US has no qualms about trading with it, and, indeed even supplying it with weapons and other things useful to its internal security forces.

The embargo against Cuba stands as a monument of hypocrisy, and everyone in the world knows it. It would be an entirely different matter if the US confined its overseas trade to countries which conformed to the USA avowed principles. But it does no such thing. Which leads to the inevitable conclusion that other reasons are really driving the policy. In this case, and, again, it is no secret, naked, internal politics are the only real reason why the embargo remains in effect. Attempting to dress it up with high sounding rhetoric about human rights does a disservice to those rights, and makes us look like charlatans and frauds. The notion that our “reputation” is enhanced by the embargo is laughable.

After re-reading my last post, and especially upon reading Reinhold’s most civil response to same, I want to apologize to Reinhold and Hector for its snarky elements. They’re obviously both people of good faith and will with different perspectives than mine and I shouldn’t have surrendered to the snark impulse.

First I say people of good faith and will can disagree on this issue, and then I snark at those who do civilly disagree with me.

Pretty stupid. Sorry guys. Especially since their intelligent remarks prompted a further thought from me:

As I mentioned of the reasons I’m against a wholesale abandonment of the embargo is because of what I see as the Castros’ inevitable manipulating of the benefits that flow therefrom to Cuba’s people to benefit themselves and their Nomenklatura.

And I do think this is a significantly un-addressed issue.

But, taken by some of the things said by Hector and Reinhold I would say that if we could somehow tailor a repeal of the embargo in a way that could avoid that to a significant degree—even if they still enjoyed the easing of pressure upon them by the material improvement the Cuban people would experience—then and in that event yes, you bet I’d be for easing the embargo to that extent, however considerable it would be.

In brief, Hector and Reinhold reminded me that my own position at least should be that we should keep our eye on the real ball here of whacking the Castros and their claque whilst harming the Cuban people to the absolute minimal degree possible.

W/re: the Cuban missile crisis the problem I have with your reading essentially comes down to my perception that you are elevating an already fatally flawed process not just over substance, but a mushroom-clouded substance.

In the first place that is you speak as if the “international law” regarding the issue had been adjudicated and it was not. Hence it seems to me the best you can do is say that in your *opinion* the U.S. was on the wrong side of same.

(Moreover, there’s even the philosophical question of what a “law” really means where its unenforced and unenforceable. Show me, that is, where the Soviet Union or Cuba got a Court to enjoin what we were doing; didn’t happen and, it should be noted, they didn’t even try. And why not unless they knew your opinion was just wrong?)

In the second place the problem with “international law” even today—which problem was far more acute back then—is that I believe almost everyone would agree the legitimacy of any law rests on the consent of the governed, and with *some* of such law not agreed to by treaty I really am not all that bothered by, say, North Korea waving a piece of paper at us howling about how we aren’t following international law in dealing with it.

Moreover, as to any “international law” the U.S. allegedly broke back then that the U.S. *had* agreed to via treaty, as you must know every country has the right at any time to renounce their obligations under same, and they have done so both formally and by implication. So even *if* there was some international law agreed to by the U.S. that contradicted what we did—and again remember, it’s only your opinion saying that we did—the second we did what we did we that consented-to international law evaporated. Perhaps once again showing why the Soviet Union and Cuba never tried to bring any alleged international law obligation into any Court.

But of course the bigger issue is the undue elevation of any process generally over substance and reality and common-sense.

Now of course *everyone* caught violating some law or process says that the substance and reality and common-sense of the situation mandated that violation.

Thus and again the question is where that law or process is being truly *unduly* elevated, and it’s long been recognized in law generally that sometimes circumstances *will* be held to legalize the action. Look, for instance, at probably every state in the Union today concerning something as mundane as vehicle operation: I would suspect that most if not all have provisions for when genuine emergencies relieves a person of the liability that would otherwise be imposed upon them.

Thus it’s a particularly piquant thing that you pick the Cuban Missile Crisis to ignore this because it’s difficult to think of a more striking example of where some process (“international law,” allegedly only) can elevated above substance and reality and common-sense.

It’s not, after all, like they were just basing some mere troops on Cuba. THEY WERE NUCLEAR MISSILES.

So what does your argument *inarguably* come down to?

Ah, it’s that for the U.S. to have been justly and smartly able to do *anything* back then we would have had to wait until at least one was used upon us.

And at that point alone I’d be willing bet that your position is just never going to enough traction to worry about.

But, as the commercials say, and again wonderfully with this Missile Crisis, “there’s more!”

Because it wasn’t just the fact that they had stationed nuclear missiles there so that one could argue that their use against us was just oh so remote as to be ridiculous.

Why?

*Because even though it would have meant the obliteration of his own people—showing just what a bleeding heart humitarian or even just lover the Cuban people he is—Castro was urging Khruschev to *use* those missiles in a surprise attack upon the U.S.*

Excellent article on this and other new info that came out in newly released records just a couple of years ago:

You know, at *some* point philadelphia, just as the law draws distinctions between misdemeanors and felonies, and then draws further distinctions within those categories too, it isn’t even “legalistic” to pretend that we have to view every other country or ruler or system on precisely the same grounds as we do ourselves or the West.

It isn’t even legalistic because as noted the law draws all kinds of distinctions.

So that of course you can bring the argument back to “oh gee, but the U.S. stationed missiles around the Soviet Union first!”

To which I’d respond “Yes, and that was a great thing because … IT WAS THE SOVIET UNION.” It was a great, bloody, aggressive, hostile, evil regime, period, and I believe we have the right to make distinctions between the good and the bad and the evil.

Indeed, isn’t the drawing of distinctions damn near the very definition of intellect? And yet what we so frequently see tried is the argument that … oh gee, because the U.S. committed this or that mistake or misdemeanor or even felony, well then you can’t draw any distinctions between us and … the Soviet Union even.

Thus, the idea that … because we put missiles around the Soviet Union means that even some “international law” restrains us from protecting ourselves when they do so to us strikes me as willful blindness. That we should be constrained by some alleged international law from protecting ourselves from a regime that, for half a century was damn near the definition of a crime against humanity (via its Gulag alone) is to me the very definition of anti-intellectualism.

Orwell once said that “[t]o see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle,” but as regards the true nature of who and what we were dealing with concerning the Soviet Union and Cuba back then it seems to me to be so plain that it needs no struggle at all.

Re: No, it’s just Cuba that expropriated all American-owned property on the island without compensation,

Property that was based on surplus value squeezed out of peasants on sugar plantations. Cuba was a horribly unequal society, and I’m not sorry that the rich plantation owners had their property taken away from them. Even if you disagree, though, it’s been five and a half decades. Surely the loss of some property isn’t worth distorting our entire foreign policy.

Re: hosted nuclear missiles pointed at us and was mad they weren’t used,

After we sponsored an invasion of their country and numerous assassination attempts. And hosted nuclear missiles pointed at our rivals. I don’t remotely see how any threat that Cuba posed to us was commensurate to the threat we posed to Cuba.

Re: dumped the Mariel boat-life on us,

Isn’t one of the biggest criticisms of the Cubans is they don’t allow freedom to emigrate? How can you blame them, then, for allowing a bunch of unsavoury elements to emigrate?

Re: and sent its death-squads to Africa

OK, this is the biggest black mark against Castro and the Cubans. They was on the right side of the conflict in Angola/Namibia, but they also gave military support to the mass-murdering Ethiopian regime. I don’t endorse that, it was evil. It was, though, not particularly any more evil than what the Americans, the French, the British, the Soviets or the Chinese were doing around the same time. In the Cold War, just about *everyone* ended up taking on some very wicked clients.

As I mentioned of the reasons I’m against a wholesale abandonment of the embargo is because of what I see as the Castros’ inevitable manipulating of the benefits that flow therefrom to Cuba’s people to benefit themselves and their Nomenklatura.

Of what business is it of the US government that Cuba is ruled by a nomenklatura? Of what business is it of yours, or mine, for that matter? I don’t want Cubans (or anyone else) interfering in our governmental institutions, so by what right should we want to interfere in theirs? How is this justification different from the mindless bulls*** that was used to justify the war in Iraq, once the WMD excuse was found to be a lie? Should we embargo countries, or invade them, because we think they’re ruled by a “bad man,” if that “bad man” is no threat to us? The Castro brothers will soon die of old age — what then? In the meantime, they have hurt no one outside of their own country, which is far less than the number of people the US government has hurt by sticking it’s nose in everyone else’s business. It is hard enough maintaining our attenuated “democracy” here — promoting it elsewhere is absurd.

Chalk this one up as another instance where Ron Paul was right, and was brave enough to say so during a campaign convention in south Florida. If our goal was truly to weaken the regime, it would appear that the actual result has been the inverse; Castro’s has managed to become currently the oldest continuously ruling regime on the planet. By contrast, the effects of opening trade with then-Communist China has resulted in on of the greatest increases in wealth the world has seen.

Responding to my gripe that Castro appropriated U.S. owned property when he took over Hector St Clare wrote:

“Property that was based on surplus value squeezed out of peasants on sugar plantations…”

First an observation and then a question, Hector:

A.) You say “squeezed out of peasants” but I know of no reports of anyone there actually being *forced* to work for any U.S. interests. In short, they had the choice not to. And yet while you condemn the system that allowed them that choice, you seem utterly sanguine about Castro’s system whereby you have no such choice whatsoever: You *must* work for him.

B.) And as regards your talk of Marx’s “surplus value” idea that prompts a question about an issue I raised before: How is it that those of you with such Marxist understandings of economics *are* against the embargo when the very foundational tenets of your beliefs hold that the only thing allowing trade with Cuba would do would be to allow the plundering of the Cubans’ *present* “surplus value” production?

Isn’t there a simply huge contradiction there? On the one hand we trade, and we’re accused of economic imperialism and vicious exploitation. We *don’t* trade with someone and in that case we are being brutal towards them.

So which is it?

A.G. Philbin wrote: “Of what business is it of the US government that Cuba is ruled by a nomenklatura? Of what business is it of yours, or mine, for that matter?”

I’m actually quite sympathetic to this view, A.G., lots because of the excellent points you raise concerning Iraq for instance and etc. To the point where if the Castros’ treatment of their own people was the only consideration I would be against our embargo of Cuba.

But I still think you go at least a bit too far. If after all we can have zero legitimate interest/concern about how a foreign regime treats its own people in Country X, then no other country could have anything other than a zero legitimate interest/concern either. So that even if every country in the U.N. agreed to cite or sanction Country X for the way it was treating its own citizens since zero plus however many other zeros still equal zero, the world could take no legitimate action whatsoever against the regime in Country X for whatever it was doing, no matter how horrendous.

That seems to me to totally eviscerate even the idea of some international law or human rights standards and I at least wouldn’t want to see things go that far.

Let’s face it, under some circumstances at some point in time continuing normal relations with a foreign country under the grip of some monster(s) can be nothing less than being complicit in what they are doing. And I think that every country individually and then the international community as a whole should be recognized as possessing the right not to continue to be so complicit.

E.g., what if you had a neighbor that tortured bunnies to death for fun but for some reason had to rely on and pay you to go and buy bunny traps for him?

Non-interested?

Or what if he did your gardening, but that it was his income from same that allowed him to keep trapping and torturing bunnies?

Still not-interested?

I.e., don’t you think that in some circumstances and at some point if you *don’t* take notice and stop doing what you are doing you *are* complicit in what they’ve been doing? So that in some circumstances and at some point in time with some regimes it would actually be *wrong* to maintain normal relations with them?

I am not seeing much in the way of actual argument in your response. The US stationed NUCLEAR MISSILES in Turkey, right near the USSR. The USSR sought to do the same near the USA, in Cuba. All caps doesn’t change the essential parity of the situation.

And, with the development a few years later of nuclear missile armed submarines, Soviet subs were routinely stationed off the US East coast, ready and able to deliver nuclear missiles to the US just as quickly (if not more so, in regards to the prime targets ((DC, NYC))), as the ones in Cuba ever were. The threat at the heart of this big “Crises,” that supposedly required blocking ships on the high seas and risking an outright, “hot” shooting war between the superpowers, was replicated in substance just a few years later, but, at that time, did not require, apparently, as you put it , that the US do “*anything*” about it. MAD worked then, and I see no reason why it would not have worked earlier with the missiles in Cuba. So, your argument of necessity, of some sort of “self defense,” holds no water.

And your link does not substantiate your further claims It says nothing about Castro wanting a surprise first strike. Rather, it says he did not want the remaining Soviet intermediate range missiles removed after the long range ones were already taken out. And, again, it is not as if he did not have his reasons. I would also point out to you that it is former officials of the very Soviet Union (that you vilify) who are making even that claim. Couldn’t it possibly be that they are seeking to scapegoat Castro, to make themselves and their regime seem more appealing?

Nor does merely attacking the USSR for being bloody, hostile, etc. amount to much of an argument. Assuming all that is true, assuming that the whole Cold War was the USSR’s fault (a big assumption, by the way), still, in this instance, Cuba and the USSR did (1) nothing aggressive, (2) nothing that constituted a real grievance on the part of the USA, and (3) nothing the USA had not done itself. If your argument simply comes down to, well the Soviets were the bad guys, so of course whatever they did was wrong, even if the USA did the same thing, then it makes no sense to talk about the particulars of any one thing that they did. Being the Soviets, and therefore always being in the wrong, they had to have been wrong in this instance as well….Not very persuasive.

And not really even all that probative when it comes to Cuba. Cuba was, after all, invaded by US proxies, and the target of further US attacks, assassination attempts, etc. Cuba naturally sought some sort of deterrent. Even if the USSR was wrong, does that mean Cuba was wrong too?

Also, Russia and China still have nuclear missiles pointed at the USA, to this day, and yet we trade with both. And
China is still ruled by at least a nominally Communist regime, as well. Cuba has had no nuclear missiles of any kind in its country for half a century, and yet they are still to be punished for that brief, transient transgression, when they did have them for, what, a matter of months?

On the legal issue, show me one iota of international law, show me any doctrine at all, that says it is OK to block naval vessels on the high seas, in international waters, transporting military supplies and weapons from one ally to another, in peacetime. The US was clearly in the wrong from a legal standpoint. Stamping your feet and questioning the very existence of international law doesn’t change that. Indeed, that response pretty much indicates that you have no reasoned counterargument.

No, all you have is leftover Cold War hostility. And most of it is about the USSR, not Cuba.

“And your link does not substantiate your further claims It says nothing about Castro wanting a surprise first strike. … I would also point out to you that it is former officials of the very Soviet Union (that you vilify) who are making even that claim. Couldn’t it possibly be that they are seeking to scapegoat Castro…”

Au contraire. Categorically au contraire. It says, and I quote: “on Oct. 27, one day before the public crisis would end, Castro cabled Khrushchev to urge a preemptive nuclear strike on U.S. targets.”

(And cables don’t scapegoat.)

Otherwise, while you say lots of sensible things about the Cuban Missile Crisis (I’ve never been taken by the JFK hagiographers as regards same) and the manner in which we handled Cuba and the USSR it seems to me nearly all of same misses the point, and where it *might* impact upon same it’s just simply wrong.

What I mean is that our point here has been the reasonableness/wisdom (or not) of the blockade on Cuba, with me saying its supported by Castro’s hostility to the U.S., and not the reasonableness/wisdom of our early geo-strategic actions.

Where however you might be addressing this is where you appear to be arguing that that enmity of Castro (and the USSR) for us was *caused* by us and this is where I just disagree.

Once again, as I said before, I just don’t accept the pretense that all actors are morally/ethically equal and the studious unwillingness to make judgments as regards same. Which then is all the more odd given the enthusiasm in which every jot and tittle of the actions of the West or the U.S. are subject to scathing moral/ethical type scrutiny. (Such as the embargo.)

How, that is, can you ignore the totalitarian nature of the Soviet Union and Cuba? How can you ignore the Gulag and Castro’s political prisoners? What the Soviet Union did with Finland, the Baltics, and Eastern Europe the second it had the chance? The intentional starvation of the Ukraine?

And, more to the point, how can you ignore the very foundation and absolutely fundamental, self-celebrated tenets of their systems professing the most extreme hatred and hostility towards us? *Not* because of anything you have ever done for them, but purely and simply because of your own nature.

How in the world are you going to convince people that we should ignore same?

It’s as if someone moved into the house across the street from you and puts up a banner saying that their most fundamental belief is that simply because of who you are they regard you as evil incarnate and they not only should but indeed have a *duty* to try to harm and destroy you at every opportunity … and you say we cannot take that into account. That the *only* thing that matters is adjudging—as morally/ethically resoundingly as possible—the always debatable actions one might take dealing with such a neighbor. (Not to mention rarely if ever adjudging *their* actions even.)

For awhile I guess, and certainly after-the-fact, yes, I suppose you can convince some academics especially of same. (To cite Orwell again, there’s nothing they can’t be persuaded of.)

But, as I said, at *some* point you across the street from such lethal neighbors are going to insist on your right to recognize their self-celebrated hostile nature and to take actions with them that would not be justified against any others, period.

Substance and context matter, philadelphia. But, per your formulation, because France has nuclear weapons just as North Korea now apparently does, we can morally/ethically treat the latter no differently than the former.

Indeed, one supposes, because France not only has nuclear weapons but the means to deliver them unto us and North Korea does not, if anything in your moral and ethical cosmology we should feel *less* able to act against North Korea than we are against France.

Tease out the consequences of your perspective and this is where you ineluctably get it seems to me: A morally and ethically suffused vision out of one eye as to the smallest details, accompanied by the blindest of blind moral/ethical vision out the other about the most prominent and important features and landmarks.

“Au contraire. Categorically au contraire. It says, and I quote: ‘on Oct. 27, one day before the public crisis would end, Castro cabled Khrushchev to urge a preemptive nuclear strike on U.S. targets.’”

Mea culpa. I missed that.

“(And cables don’t scapegoat.)”

No. But reports about what are in cables certainly can. I see no direct quote from a cable, merely the Soviet’s official claim as to what was in it. And, again, his fifty years after the fact, self serving, Russian serving, Castro blaming account is not necessarily the whole truth. In any event, folks fairly high up in the US government were willing to use nuclear weapons pre emptively, in this and other situations, and yet I doubt you think the US should continue to be punished therefore.

“Once again, as I said before, I just don’t accept the pretense that all actors are morally/ethically equal and the studious unwillingness to make judgments as regards same. Which then is all the more odd given the enthusiasm in which every jot and tittle of the actions of the West or the U.S. are subject to scathing moral/ethical type scrutiny. (Such as the embargo.)

“How, that is, can you ignore the totalitarian nature of the Soviet Union and Cuba? [etc, etc]…”

All of this, to the end of your post, is just a rehash of what you said before. The USSR was bad. Cuba was/is bad. Therefore the USA was right viz a viz the missiles. Again, that is not really an argument. We are discussing what is right or wrong in terms of this one “crises.” Even assuming the USSR was as evil as you say it was, and Cuba too, even assuming the Russians and their allies were overall responsible for the Cold War, it is still simply illogical and counter historical to say that, because of those “facts,” it and they must have been in the wrong in this instance, and responsible for this “crises.”

Unless you can come up with an argument that shows they were in the wrong in this instance, and one that disproves the other points I made, which you don’t actually address other than to say that they are “sensible,” then you don’t really have an argument, just a free flowing, generalized hostility. Under your theory, the US could never have been wrong about anything in the Cold War, in a moral sense, because, when something it did was immoral is pointed out, you can always retort with, “Lookit, lookit, the Soviets starved people and tortured them!.” If that is the way you are going to approach the matter, it is simply impossible to actually examine the historical truth, and its moral implications, when it comes to any particular incident in the Cold War.

Finally, you mention derisively the “enthusiasm” with which “scathing” moral/ethical scrutiny is applied to US actions, including the embargo, yet you are the one who decided to jump on this thread and defend the embargo from, what I can tell, is a moral/ethical (as opposed to merely utilitarian/”realist”) perspective. In other words, you yourself opened up the discussion to the morality of the embargo. And you used the Cuban Missile “Crises,” specifically, Castro’s hosting of the missiles, as a factor in that moral case. And thus it is not at all surprising, nor wrong, that that is the focus of my responses to you. Nor that the alleged overall perfidy of the USSR, which I am willing to stipulate for the sake of argument, does not so figure.

Well, all I know is that despite having exhausted my anyway modest store of persuasiveness on this issue not only does it seem that I’ve attracted few to my side but very possibly have alienated even more who once were to now disagree with me and so I’d better quit while I’m only so far behind.